8-year-old Midlander enjoys special day as junior deputy

Published 3:03 pm, Sunday, June 9, 2013

Just about everyone has times when the ultimate goal is to get through a day without dealing with the problem at hand.

For Midlander Caden Creswell, 8, those are days to treasure.

Because his problem is a medical condition called eosinophilic esophagitis, those days when he's not reminded about EE are few and far between. Giving Caden that opportunity is what members of the Midland County Sheriff's Office tried to do Thursday.

The soon-to-be third-grader, like many young boys, has dreams of perhaps becoming a police officer when he grows up.

On Thursday, he lived that dream as a junior deputy.

His mother, Keira Creswell, had shared Caden's story with the wife of a co-worker, who in turn shared it with sheriff's investigator Bobby Neal. Neal said he and fellow law enforcement officials, Chris Evans and Tim Hulsey, decided to surprise Caden with his special day.

The day began at the Midland County Sheriff's Office building where Caden was sworn in as a junior deputy by Sheriff Gary Painter.

The youth, who moved to Midland last week from Big Spring, was initially bashful and kept to himself. That mood changed as he was taken out to ride in the department's armored personnel carrier while wearing SWAT team equipment. After riding in the APC, the officers took Caden to the shooting range and showed him some of the weapons they use on the job, including a .22-caliber pistol and an AR-15.

By lunch time, Caden was lively and talkative as he listened to the county officials tell stories and looked forward to later in the day when he would get to make his first "arrest."

During the events of the day it was easy to forget that this was the same child who deals daily with medical hardships.

Caden was diagnosed at age 2 with a heart condition that left his body in a weakened state, his mother said. This caused other health issues, including eosinophilic esophagitis, an allergic inflammatory disease and typically chronic disorder that affects from one to four of every 10,000 people in the United States, according to the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

For some with EE, the body views food as an allergy or virus. Due to an enflamed esophagus, there is, according to the ACAAI website, trouble swallowing foods -- a feeling like food is "stuck" in the esophagus. People with EE aren't able to eat normally, Keira Creswell said, and therefore don't get the proper amount of nutrients.

Creswell said she is working on creating a Facebook page for Caden and plans to sell bracelets to help raise awareness of her son's medical condition as well as to help pay for the medical bills.

Caden will soon be having surgery to remove his gallbladder, she said.